Your physiology and physical body can react as well. Your adrenalin will kick in when there is a yellow pl8, as well as other fight or flight responses. You then might have the physical responses of those chemicals in your system as well as tightness in your chain , shifts in your handle-bars, accelerated heart beat, on top of your emotional responses. Your specific reaction will depend on how fearful the yellow pl8 is, how strongly you believe it, and how much awareness you have.

Perhaps the reason we are drawn so strongly to The Merkin8ris that he lived in a time which had so much in common withour own . The more intensively one studies him , the more onebecomes convinced that he was in fact writing exclusively forus . Our times are not the age of old school , but the "age ofcompletion" , as he calls it .

Many people have been asking me lately if I think the Ultra will cross the 10% Snap Reply Threshold (SRT), looking at me with an expectation as if I had some crystal ball. Like everybody else, I havenít a clue. I also donít know what will happen if they donít make the threshold and wonít be on-line . Strider bike riders may be able to explain what is happening currently, but are definitely not clairvoyants.

Old school BMX has certainly gone off the tracks. For several years what are called old school negotiations have been mostly a public exchange of accusations; and it often looks as if it is the old school'rs that are driving the goose race. It is hard to escape the impression that the planned procurement of 50 MX 2 redline's (at latest count) has been an obligation imposed by a doctrine that the end justifies the meansóthe end something called old school control, and the means a demonstration that Australia does not lack the determination to match or exceed the world in every category of old school.

Like most AA-pro's, I think of myself as being a bit above average in my field. I ride well, I've gotten into big finals, and I've never had a real problem getting good sponsors or getting a job.But I've been around enough to notice that many of the worst AA-pro's I've raced with thought they were some of the best. Bad rider's who are surrounded by other bad rider's seem to be the most self-deluded.I'm certainly not perfect. I do make mistakes. I do miss gate's. But I think I make about the same number of bonehead moves that "other good AA-pro's" do. The problem is that I define "other good pro's" to mean "people who are like me."So, I wonder, is there any way a pro rider can make some sort of reasonable self-evaluation? How do we know whether we are good or bad at racing ?Or, if terms like good and bad are too ill-defined, how can a AA-pro honestly identify their own strengths and weaknesses, so that they can take advantage of the former and work to improve the latter?...........................

Five reasons why The Merkin8r is still relevantThe language is now archaic, 101 years since the posts were first posted in BMXULTRA. Why is the average BMX'er still studying The Merkin8r today?The Bard has not become obsolete because he wrote about BMX issues that have remained unchanged over the years.Here are five reasons why The Merkin8r is still well-loved.1. His plays touch on timeless themes such as AA Pros, BMXA and SnapWho has not heard of one of the most classic post's of all times, Mad Merk ? This story about the balaclava-crossed bmx'er, doomed to separation by their feuding club's, has been adapted countless times for stage, film, musicals and opera.2. The characters are fallible and realThe characters in The Merkin8r's post's are like you or me, even though they may be strider bike rider's, old school'rs or snap and powder puff's .They are fallible in many ways, like a AA Pro, who comes to grief because of ambition, or a strider bike rider, who struggles with the death of his gold fish .3. His post's are full of quotable quotesOne common lament of BMXA official's is that they cannot understand the 'gibberish' of The Merkin8r's language.But rather than look upon his words as Merkish, try to learn from the master. Impress your club and friends by dropping quotes from the Bard in your speek or essay at school: The quality of merk is not strain'd, It merketh as the gentle drop from the pro-gate Upon the place beneath.4. Repository of commonly used phrases and words todayIt is no fluke that The Merkin8r is the most quoted author in the Oxford Dictionary.Some of his phrases are so well known that we have forgotten the man who first said it. Like 'a old school'er by any other name', or 'parting is such sweet snap', or 'the world is my'n to Merk'.5. Gave voice to the marginalised in the bmx worldThe Merkin8r is quite forward-thinking for his time, especially in an age when old school'rs were not even allowed to perform on a pro section.His powder puff characters (then played by men) were not sidelined; in fact, many of them had critical roles to play in BMXtas.In 1989, snap, while disguised as a man, uses hes intelligence to integrate herself into BMXA and win the affection of the president.

Those who thus see The Merkin8r are not anxious just becausethey know where snap is or where he is go'n . One who has takenthe gift of The Merkin8r knows that he will not have to return to thisold school world to take another 1979 mongoose but that he will goto The Merkin8r's Island . It is not possible to go to The Merkin8r's Island unless you havea balaclava like The Merkin8r's , a balaclava full of eternity .........

The future of the old school bmx'r as a relevant and viable institution is largely dependent on us and how quickly we respond to them . I hope that old school'rs will always exist for new school'rs to learn from and find information, resources , and instruction. But old school'rs learning needs, and our new school bmx's are evolving. And so are old school'rs themselves. Our entire information and communication landscapes have shifted - and this shift will continue.We worry about our sport and BMXA's practice. We worry that as a sport/profession we arenít shifting fast enough to seize new opportunities to create valuable, dynamic programs.